


A Missing Piece

by Stryfe



Series: Cablepool [4]
Category: Cable and Deadpool, Deadpool - All Media Types, X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe, Angst and Feels, Don't Ask Don't Tell, Ha! Cause Wade and Nate are GAAAAY FOR EACH OTHER, Happy ending at some point, I'M SORRY WADE AND NATE, M/M, Maybe - Freeform, The Author Regrets Nothing And Yet Everything, so much heartbreak
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-15
Updated: 2015-12-15
Packaged: 2018-09-07 13:45:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8803132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stryfe/pseuds/Stryfe
Summary: What could be worse than feeling like you're missing half of your soul, a half that can't and won't heal? Knowing who that piece is and and that you can't ever have it.





	

**Author's Note:**

> All characters belong to their respective owners (Marvel, etc.). My stories may not be posted elsewhere or otherwise used or changed without my sole permission.

Wade had promised himself time and again to stop coming back, except days like this he just couldn’t help himself. Days where he wanted to kill himself over and over until his world finally came to a violent stop. But Wade just wasn’t a lucky man at all, not in this world at least. Peeking into the Greymalkin Cemetery, Wade opened the gate into the empty and gradually darkening graveyard. His feet followed the path he knew far better than his own katanas, straight to a tiny grave plot that had called him here the first time. The cold, gray tombstone sat there as lonely as it had been when he’d started trying to find what had pulled him to the graveyard in the first place.

“So, how’s it been, eh?” Wade remarked casually at the grave marker, placing his bouquet of red roses against the stone where it rose from the dirt as he sat down. Wade always liked to think that adding “eh” would amuse the tiny baby buried beneath the dirt. Other people he’d met often commented on how funny it was to hear a Canadian actually say “eh”, especially when Wade added the accent. Letting a small smile on his face, Wade finally continued, needing to fill in the silence that ate away at him whenever he came here.

“You ever wonder why life sucks so much, Nate? I dunno, maybe you had it lucky. Off in a better place where people can’t hurt you over and over.” He doubted the kid liked that though. Nathan seemed like the kind of person who would rather be out there trying to help people. Maybe even help someone like Wade get better. Deep, deep, deep, **deep**  down inside Wade knew he was still a good person. Except one Weapon X later, he had nothing left but a cancerous healing factor and insanity keeping him company which meant Wade could still be hurt over and over again. “What do you think you would have done had you lived Nate?” Wade asked, shoulders slumping.

He wouldn’t ever get an answer, even if it always felt like Nathan was right there with him. Wade could swear Nate was _speaking_ to him sometimes. Maybe it was just because he was insane with voices already in his head but it certainly wasn’t white or yellow speaking, not even Wade himself was speaking. Just someone else entirely, like a barely audible voice.

“Y’know, I was off in Rumekistan a few months ago. Apparently they decided to create a new country because of so much war in the area over the land. They had this huge festival for it too. Picked up a job to kill their first leader.” Wade paused and tilted his head at the gravestone just a bit. “You don’t have to take that kind of silence with me,” Wade griped, gaze dropping with a little bit of shame like a child who’d knew he’d done something bad.

“It’s not like that anyway…” Wade continued softly, after too many long minutes of silence. “I looked into his background. Did all my research so well, I think you’d be proud of me. This guy had helped start the whole war in the surrounding countries. Was watching him one night and he… He started _touching_ his daughter. She just stood there, afraid, so I took the shot. Head shot and an exploding bullet. Insta-kill.” Wade choked out, anger spilling from his voice while his fists clenched tightly at the memory. “Bastard deserved to suffer for it. Wasn’t his first offense either if you looked at his prison record.”

Leaning forward, Wade placed his masked forehead on the cold stone of the grave. Some higher power was getting a kick out of this. The big, bad Deadpool confessing his crimes and dirty secrets to a dead infant, someone long gone from the world. The same tiny child he’d never met made him turn away from just taking every job he could for the money. Now that tiny child had Wade hook, line and sinker, somehow getting him to improve the world the only way a man like Deadpool could: taking out the worst of the scum and revealing their crimes to the world. “I put all the details about him in the Rumekistan news channel and it went viral. Everyone kept saying how his death was a good thing after that and even all the legal execs in the world couldn’t stop his past from spilling out to the world… they took his daughter to a safe place, did you know that already? She was a little mutant. Xavier’s school ought to do her some good, especially as she’s going through therapy.”

Wade lifted up his hand, beginning to trace over each and every letter of the grave’s named occupant. It had become his absolute favorite name and he hadn’t forgotten since the day he’d first been drawn to the cemetery to read it. Wade’s favorite girl Death must have known how much he loved the name too. Death had been complaining Wade had been on too big of a killing spree, threatening her precious balance. He hadn’t cared either, Wade had just wanted it all to end and the best way to do that? Set the world against him so they’d be forced to find a cure for this damn healing factor just to kill him.

Death must’ve have known how crazy Wade was getting; how desperate he’d been for all of it to just finally _end_ even though it never would _._ On Nathan’s birthday, nearly 30 years ago now, Wade had been shooting himself in the head. The third time he’d killed himself he had used a shotgun just to stay dead as long as he possibly could. That time though, Death had appeared with a small baby in her arms. She’d called him Nathan, the same Nathan he’d suspected had been the one to fill the empty grave plot Wade had visited at the Greymalkin cemetery, earlier that day. Something had entranced him about the tiny child; his left arm was made of metal, as was part of his chest and neck. Techno organic virus, Death had called it. Wade had reached out his finger, letting the infant grasp it with his metal hand while Wade’s eyes gazed deep into his small, deep blue eye and his other glowing yellow one.

Death had asked if he’d wanted to hold Nathan, staring at him intently all the while. He’d remembered nodding dumbly, unable to find words. Picking him up from Death’s arms had been indescribable. He was so tiny and frail, going back and forth between biting and sucking on the hand he’d manage to steal from Wade. Soft, precious baby. Holding Nathan in his arms, Wade had felt at peace for the first time in his life. Like a missing half of his soul that had been ripped from him had finally been found and put back together. But it was over all too soon, when Wade could feel his healing factor dragging him away from Nathan and Death. He’d begged her to let him stay, use her powers or something to keep his body from healing ever again. She’d denied him that too, saying she couldn’t.

As Wade had woken up, the memories of seeing Death and Nathan flooded right back into his mind, and the missing half of Wade that had finally been made whole was ripped wide open again, leaving him distraught and alone. Wade had run out of the good bullets--the ones that helped destroy his brain and kept him dead longer--realizing this when the gun simply clicked, instead of firing like it should have. No more good bullets meant no more Nathan. He’d rushed to the closest gun store, Wade’s own weapon caches too far away from his current location for his patience, and bought out the entirety of their shotgun shells.

Back at his own apartment, Wade had spent all day shooting himself in the head and destroying whatever part of his body that he could to keep himself dead as long as possible. Every time he’d gone back to see Death, she still held baby Nathan in her arms, waiting patiently on Wade to come back before offering Nathan to him again and again. Death had soothingly rubbed Wade’s back as he had stared at and held Nathan in his arms for the umpteenth time, promising that Nathan would be the one always greeting him when he died now since she couldn’t help him with his healing factor.

Wade had only nodded again, too choked with tears to respond. Over the 30 years since Nathan’s life had been cut far too short, Wade had watched him grow from a tiny infant being cradled in his and Death’s arms to a well-muscled man, what the kid surely would have grown up to look like if he hadn’t died so young. The metal arm had even grown with him, a genuine living metal which Wade had always found to be fascinating. Just like Death had promised him shortly after he'd met Nathan for the first time, Nathan, not Death, had been the one to greet him when he died (though Death did make visits occasionally). Wade enjoyed his time with Nathan more than anything else. His giant man stood at 6’8, a mountain of muscle, one blue eye and a glowing yellow one always staring right back into Wade’s own eyes with a kindness and patience beyond Wade's comprehension. Nathan’s soft white hair tangled beautifully between Wade's scarred fingers. Nathan would always hold Wade close and listen to him ramble on and on about anything and everything, listening to every confession and dirty sin Wade had committed. Nathan would scold him, sometimes, even get angry on occasion, but no matter what Nathan always pulled Wade against him with his metal arm, holding him close and staring into his eyes. Nathan told Wade each time, without fail, that he loved him. He meant it too, the only person Wade had ever known and trusted that Nathan meant what he said--meant the best for Wade when he kept telling him to stop needlessly killing people.

But none of that stopped Wade’s heart from feeling like it was being ripped to pieces while he sat in front of the grave, head still leaning on the stone, while choked sobs and tears escaped him. He only ever got to see Nathan when he was dead and it was never long enough. Never long enough to heal the missing piece of Wade’s soul that wouldn’t--or maybe even _couldn’t_ \--heal when Nathan was so far away from him in a place where Wade couldn’t join him.

A sudden beeping began screeching at Wade from his phone. He knew who it was, knew what they wanted. Wade just didn’t want to leave yet because this was the closest he could get to Nathan; the closest he could get to the missing half of Wade, forever denied to him, without permanently dying himself. Something he just didn't know how to accomplish. Standing up slowly without removing his eyes from the grave, Wade waited, trying to delay the news as long as possible.

“I know I wasn’t here long today. Got a job I picked up before I came here to help the X-men… Maybe I’ll get to see you if I’m lucky ‘nough to die again while I’m on the mission Nate. I love you.” Wade whispered softly, choking a bit on the last few words before casting one last longing look at the grave as he turned around to leave. Never with Nathan long enough and always too far from him for comfort. But if Wade didn’t try to help make the perfect world Nathan had told him he’d desired, then Nathan would have to shoulder a burden he couldn’t ever complete. Better to hurt a little now so that Nathan wouldn’t have to when he looked at the broken world from beyond the grave.

_Here lies Nathan Christopher Charles Summers_

_They told us you'd be leaving_

_But we weren't willing to say goodbye._

_You were gone before we knew it_

_And only God knows why._

_In life we loved you dearly_

_In death we love you still._

_In our hearts we hold a place_

_That only you can fill._

_It broke our heart to lose you_

_But you didn't go alone._

_A part of us went with you_

_The day you were taken home._


End file.
